my green diary

yogurt lid cut outs

2011-03-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Here are some yogurt lid cut outs I made. I have a big collection of yogurt containers and lids and well, one thing led to another and I began making these cut outs. I've given some away and some were made with a particular person in mind but I'd like to have a show with a group of them sometime.

There is a tradition of Jewish paper cuts that I'm also referencing in this work and an amazing 8th grade student I know also inspired me with some of his cut outs...Also I can almost finish one if I get up early and start cutting before anyone else in the house is awake. It's a great way to start the day when I can manage it.

Mini-Maker Faire

2010-10-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'll be making a collaborative solar powered sculpture at the East Bay Mini-Maker Faire on October 24th, More info is here

my own private Idaho

2009-12-30T16:29:00.000-08:00

We went to Idaho to visit family for the holidays. When I was a child Idaho sounded impossibly remote to me. I lived in the Oregon woods but in Idaho I was sure the trees were taller, disappearing into the blue, the shaggy dark green branches, covered in snow like heavy frosting and drifts so deep one had to tunnel out for months at a time. Now when I drive to my in-laws from the airport we pass Borders, Target, the Olive Garden. Everywhere feels like everywhere. On our return to Oakland my 7 year old daughter points out TJ Maxx. " They have that in Idaho." "Yup, they do."

solar chandelier video

2009-02-18T23:18:00.000-08:00

solar chandelier installed!

2009-02-18T21:21:00.001-08:00

Here are some shots of the sculpture. First being installed by Maurice and Jeff Levitch. I'm so glad I didn't have to ascend the ladder. The second shot shows the panel and the last two show the piece hanging...It all went well, a few adjustments were made and I was nervous as it went up, would someone fall? would the panel work? (edit...oops posted in the opposite order of preview for some reason so the first mentioned is the last, but you get the picture...video to follow)

it moves

2008-12-29T13:14:00.000-08:00

my solar panel is moving the solar sculpture in circles...maybe a bit faster than I had hoped but still....it moves!

where I've been

2008-11-25T16:14:00.000-08:00

I've been away from my blog. yup, between the obsessively following the election, teaching, doing laundry, and working on the biggest ever solar project I've made I got out of the habit of posting but I'm going to start posting again. Above you can see the Solar Chandelier in my studio...still very much work in progress I've spent every recent Friday tying teeny tiny knots in filament to make the stuff hang just so. My panel arrived cracked so now I'm waiting for the replacement to see if the thing will turn or not.....very suspenseful.

my new hero

2008-10-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Today I was struggling with my solar powered sculpture project. It's coming together but there have been some technical areas I just didn't know how to make work. The art/techy types I emailed weren't responding...despair was beginning to set in. Finally, today I called, yes just got on the phone with, Therese who I had been referred to by Tony and she sent me to Guy. Guy is the guy I would be in an alternate universe. Look at his website. He has designed all kinds of amazing stuff. Created his own art and collaborated with other artists. He's built a solar hot water system. He lives in gorgeous Maine and to top it off he answered his phone and gave me several easy answers to problems I could not solve in my brain at 4 am! I heart Guy!

ecoversary

2008-09-26T08:00:00.000-07:00

This week I celebrated 20 years of being married. In the midst of the busyness of school starting, daughter's bday, and myriad details of daily life my husband and I managed to get away for 24 hours! We had a light green theme to our celebration...On the actual day(Wed) we visited the temple of food and bowed down to local, organic, delicious, slow, tastes at Chez Panisse. It was the first time we'd ever eaten downstairs and the food was not surprisingly, amazing. The vibe felt warm and perfectly celebratory for 20 years, a number I find it hard to get my mind around...I guess I don't feel old enough to have been doing anything for 20 of my adult years but at the same time yes, of course, and glad to be doing what felt exactly right, eating that incredibly artful and honest food.

On Saturday we took the ferry to San Francisco with our bikes. Then ate more delicious local fare at the ferry building, Acme bread, local blue cheese, figs...then biked to our downtown hotel....we splashed out big time and had a view of the whole Golden Gate bay from our lovely room. In the afternoon we made our way to Crissy field along the water. It felt incredibly freeing not to have to worry about parking, all that stress of looking for it and paying for it, gone. We kept pace or even beat the traffic on our two wheels. Wandering around North Beach later we found Cafe Divine, another restaurant with local suppliers. The waiter, a younger version of my husband, gave us champagne and treated us with sincere kindness.

Sunday morning we went back to the ferry, ate more delicious local fare then onto the boat and with tenderness watched the city recede...pedaled home through the quiet Oakland streets to reunite with kids and all the stuff of life.

Parking Day movie

2008-09-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a little movie I made of Parking Day.

Parking Day 2008

2008-09-24T18:48:00.000-07:00

Happy Parking Day and happy 1st bday to my blog! Mary V. Marsh and I set out bright and early but ironically, got caught in traffic, on our way to parking day. Still we set up outside SFMOMA and made our park. Parking day regulars came by and drank sun tea, read Mary's earth flags, watched solar flora rotate, and fed our meter in exchange for little books. Newbies asked questions, we had a long intense conversation about climate change with a fellow from Denmark, writing his dissertation on visual imagery and climate change. All in all a day well spent.

madrone

2008-08-29T20:55:00.000-07:00

I went to Oregon last weekend and visited the place I grew up. 40 years ago my parents "dropped out" and moved to the country, formed a commune and lived without electricity or running water. This was our 40 year reunion. Naturally seeing all the people was amazing but I'm not going to say much about that. What struck me was the place, the land, the smells, colors, sounds. All those feel stitched into my body at an almost cellular level. Each smell of flowering plants or pine was an olfactory reminder of my younger self. The soothing sound of creeks and streams heard everywhere on the land, the icy cold water on skin. The heat of the August sun. The greenish flaky serpentine rocks, deep purple blue oregon grapes, white queen anne's lace, orange red earth, red poison oak. Bird song, cedar tree, doug fir, madrone. Madrone bark peeling in layers, dropping down, red bark, brown bark, green. All of it soothing me back to my childhood summers and singing in the voice of the sweetest mother I have ever known.

sustainable school institute

2008-08-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

This week I attended a Bay Are Teacher Dev. Collaborative institute on Sustainability. It was held at the Bay School (hence the photo). Two fun filled days of presentations, conversations, and delicious, organic food. The keynote speaker was Fritjof Capra,from the Center for Ecoliteracy . I took a class with him on Deep Ecology in the 80's at UC Berkeley. Hearing him speak I realized how much his teaching had inspired my thinking on sustainability and my general worldview. His view of life as a complex system in which each part's relationship to the whole must be valued was inspiring then and now. However it is difficult and sobering to realize how much more dire the situation looks now than it did 20+ years ago. Today I read that the Arctic is now predicted to be ice free in summer in 5 years rather than 60....Still it was so exciting to be in a room full of people, including a number of heads of schools, who want to use their institutions to create real change.

So much to fear so much to hope for.

I heart Freecycle

2008-08-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

I recently got back into Freecycling as I cleared out stuff and I've got to say I loooove it. If you are unfamiliar with Freecycle Freecycle it is an email list where folks post what they have to give away and others respond. Let me enumerate what I love about freecycle. I can post my odds and ends, things that are cluttering and encumbering my life and others, often unseen, will gratefully relieve me of them. Things I've recently freecycled include a pile of old bricks, a car stereo whose volume went down every time I drove over a bump, and a shoe holder. On the other end of the equation I've gotten amazing stuff, most of which I would have no idea where to find. The ergonomic tray holding this keyboard on which I type is the example closest at hand. Oh and a real manual typewriter, which I will take to school to use with my students, but for now my 5 yo is learning letters on (my son came into the kitchen and typed one pithy line...the f word over and over and over, I heart twelve year old boys too). With freecycle there is the thrill of winning when someone picks me, yes me, for their item and the sweet relief of having something unloved by me loved and desired by so many. Truly green magic.

cool art

2008-07-25T23:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, just found out about Virginia Fleck who makes mandalas from plastic bags and is part of the Austin Green Art. I need to be part of a group like that. OK, anyone know any other Bay Area artists who would be into it? I need a collective, collaborators, co-conspirators...

In other news I am making yogurt lids and cardboard tubes into art. Time consuming fun!

handlebars

2008-07-12T14:18:00.001-07:00

Here's a video of my son and pals performing the Flobots song, Handlebars. It has a serious message about our times and yes, I'm biased, but I think he does a great job with it!

blue shadows

2008-07-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

With all the smoke in the air lately the colors have changed. The light has a yellow/orange cast and the shadows look bluer than usual. It made me think of Monet's paintings of sunsets that were probably created by the coal and wood smoke hazing the cities back then....

today'snews

2008-07-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

So in the hazy bay area air I read and heard some good green news recently. Elizabeth Kolbert's article in the New Yorker talks about a small island becoming energy independent. Her original series in the magazine a few years ago was a catalyst for my own environmental awakening. It was an incredibly bleak portrait of climate change that later became "field notes on a catastrophe", a book I own a signed copy of but have yet to work up the courage to read. In this piece she talks about how change actually happens. I like the vision of plucky farmers competing to see who can produce the most energy, also how the organizer worked with the existing tendencies of the community to create peer pressure to change. Social engineering against climate change! I'm going to be thinking about how to harness this when I go back to school in the Fall.

In a local parenting paper the editors looked at their carbon footprints but I can't find it online...

Today I heard on NPR that a garden is being planted in Civic Center, San Francisco. They are tearing up lawn and planting veggies! Very cool. Apparently an artist started this garden project. Another instance of the intersection of art and environmentalism.

smoke

2008-06-28T16:30:00.000-07:00

Just returned from celebrating my mother's 70th birthday in Graeagle, CA. My sisters and I had planned a surprise long weekend away with her and our families. However the state of California was hit with huge, unprecedented, wildfires in the days before. We arrived in the picturesque Sierra hamlet to find smoky skies and trees hazed with weird orange light. As an asthmatic who suffers after sitting around a campfire for too long I felt an almost instant physical response and as a chronic worrier about climate change I felt a deep emotional one. It was bizarre beyond belief to be sitting around celebrating as the state burned.Watching my children frolic in the strange grey air.

I still haven't seen any articles talking about the flooding in the midwest and the california fires being a result of climate change, though clearly this is what has been predicted....there seems to be a huge cloud of denial along with the smoke.

hot

2008-06-20T20:59:00.000-07:00

Has it ever been this hot in June in the Bay Area? It is 9pm and 82 degrees inside my house. We have had more hot days than I can ever remember and fires are already starting up. The whirrr in my brain says "climate change, climate change, climate change" As I folded the dry warm laundry off the line this evening ( a benefit, shirts dried within minutes of being pinned up. I rotated through three loads on my two lines)the cat, Rosie mewed pitifully from the roof. Once more she had gotten herself up there but forgotten how to get down. Is this us, roasting in our fur on the roof, with no awareness of how to escape when in fact we just need to take a leap on to a rickety fence and balance back to the ground? I fan myself and hope....

blue rumbler

2008-06-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

alas our biodiesel 1979 Mercedes aka the blue rumbler has some real issues, transmission is slipping, glow plugs are flickering, driver's door sticking. We're going to put her out to pasture...however hope springs eternal! We are buying a 1980 smaller (rumbler was a boat that putted up hills at 10 mph even with the pedal to the metal) version! Hoping to convert to straight veggie oil and have better luck in the repair department.

Father's Day

2008-06-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

Here's a poem I wrote a few years ago...

First Period

my father brought me flowers,
cheerful in the vase as I cramped,

embarrassed by their public color,
his male mention of my new body,

Today when I bled
I remembered the cone of blossoms.

Now he is gone.
Now my shame is done.

All that remains is my memory
of petals and stems

and grant us this,
red bloom of truce.

frogs

2008-06-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

My daughter and I collected some pond scum this spring and have been watching the eggs turn to tadpoles and now to frogs. She is delighted and amazed, as am I. I find myself gazing into the tank several times a day to see what changes have happened and when the first pollywog emerged from the deep onto dry land I felt like I was seeing primordial evolution happen before my eyes!

summer is a coming in

2008-06-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

One of the wonderful things about teaching is, of course, summer vacation. In mid-May it feels like summer will never arrive and then there is the amazing rush of early June when it seems I will never get everything done that must be done before the year can end. There are the field days and graduations when I look at the students and think about what they were like 5 years ago when I met them. How tall they've grown, how they look like young men and women instead of kids. There is the sadness of saying goodbye to colleagues who are moving on or retiring. There is the deep appreciation of certain treasured colleagues who stay on. The regret for moments played poorly and pride in those pulled off. I feel moored in a slipstream of time, bobbing up and down on its currents and pulled by the deep tow of my own certain someday voyage on.

slooow down

2008-05-24T04:04:00.000-07:00

I've been busy, really busy with the multiple things that make up a mom, teacher, artist, environmentalist, life. Yes, I admit being busy is my addiction. The rush of saying "yes" to another important task, the thrill of moving at light speed from one event to the next, the exhilaration of forward momentum. Sometimes slowing down feels like a hangover. I get edgy even snappish. So it was a delight to find myself lying in the sun on the deck with my five year old today. We had an outing planned but my son unexpectedly fell asleep at noon (he also has a predilection for pushing himself until he drops) and so we made an impromptu picnic with basil from the garden, alas, colorful but not that tasty tomatoes from Mexico, olive oil, and good bread. The warm deck, my daughter's silly chatter, sweet basil ahhh the slow life of now.